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@pluto Honestly, the first time I read this post I was just laughing and making fun of it in my head. Got myself back together quickly though because I actually have experienced not being hungry for days when I had some kind of realisation or when I felt more 'aligned’ with life than usual (somehow ‘in the flow’, it’s hard to explain). It’s like I just forgot to eat. Also needing less sleep and being more aware while sleeping. It feels like being plugged into an invisible electricity outlet that gives you endless amounts of energy, doesn’t it? So I got caught in closed mindedness for a bit… but I’m willing to get out of it :-) May I ask how active you are? I can imagine going without food when I wouldn’t have to move much but I have a very physically demanding job. I can’t even manage intermittent fasting because I would literally drop by 11 am if I don’t eat breakfast.

@Schahin From what I’m reading in your post it seems like you’d like to get some kind of certainty / idea about the future. You shouldn’t wast time in trying to predict anything with astrology. Imo it doesn’t work, life is way too complex. If it would work that way, someone would have found out already and there’d be no surprises. That doesn’t mean that it’s all bs but maybe we have to approach it differently. Here’s what I found out about this topic so far: Different planets have different meanings and depending on how they’re aligned (conjunctions and oppositions), characteristic events happen in our individual or collective human life. It’s less about hard scientific facts but if you develop a bit of an archetypal eye and you’re able to think in big picture terms it’s becoming more obvious. (Richard Tarnas spent a huge chunk of his life looking for these correlations. Read ‘Cosmos And Psyche’ if you’re interested.) You can look back at historical events and see that pretty clearly or could learn to draw your natal chart and check for yourself how the planets were aligned in different times of your life (and what those planets mean). So certain planets might stand for certain dynamics but it’s basically impossible to know how it’s gonna play out up front. For example: Chaplin and Hitler had very similar birth charts, associated with alignments that stand for great skill in communication, proneness to nervous agitation, harsh life experiences such as sustained poverty and isolation, problematic relationships with authority combined with controlling tendencies, a pull towards personal eccentricity, artistic impulses and interests, experiences of rejection and frustration, inclinations towards relationships with unusually young or emotionally immature woman and capability to powerfully move audiences. They had very different lives but it’s hard to deny the similarity in these dynamics. Again, only when you look at it with an archetypal eye. But hey, it’s hard to draw the line there on where one could just add meaning to things that aren’t there. Objectivity is out the window for sure. So in his book he says that yes, there’s a tendency to experience breakthroughs and transformation in correspondence with certain planetary alignments but they do not per se cause it. They’re just indicators of an underlying pattern that is playing itself out. The planets do not ‘cause’ events anymore than a clock doesn’t ‘cause’ time, it’s an indicator of it, it happens simultaneously. He also writes that even though he was very sceptical, he thinks that the universe is an interconnected whole, informed by creative intelligence which causes patterns of meaning. Something informs the cosmos and our psyche. “As above, so below” Whatever that is and if you believe in it is up to you. God? Maybe he’s not doing a very good job at hiding;-)

The only thing that is permanent in your experience is you. So maybe try and provide yourself some permanence? You obviously need stability to get through the day. Prioritise that over trying to grasp concepts that are overwhelming you. Thinking about it won’t help. Try to do more and think less. Follow your genius. Solutions might present themselves through actions, sometimes when you least expect it. Just some suggestions: Have a date or a call with a friend once a week, join a hiking group, take the same kind of walk everyday, put some time in something that sparks your interest/ a creative project, look up job alternatives that excite you, make a vision board, etc. You obviously had a great time the past days. Maybe loving your camping trip/ being outside so much is trying to tell you something. Sometimes when you start meditating things you thought were ‘kind of ok’, like a job for example, suddenly seem terrible and situations become unbearable. You can’t deny the obvious anymore: it’s time for a change. Let’s be honest, you’re probably not living the life you want. How long are you gonna be stuck in this? :-) We will probably have to deal with the impermanence thing at some point but this day doesn’t have to be today. All in good time.

What. The. Fuck. I'm reading this post only now! After sending you the message. I SWEAR! Literally laughed for 5 minutes. I give up. Life is too much. What am I even?

You could try and find a farm/ community that you like and volunteer there. They might let you live and eat there in exchange for working several hours a day in the garden or in the fields. Camphill - style! I did that for quite a while and it's a good way to find your own direction. In a bigger community it's also usually easier to spread the work and have a bigger variety of food of your own, not just some veggies from the garden and 2 fruit trees. I work (actually hope to work soon) on a farm where we're I'd say we're 90% self sustained. That includes everything from fruit (fresh and for jam and juice) veggies (all year round) to grains (for making our own pasta, rice, spelt for bread, buckwheat etc), herbs (for tea and spices), milk (and milk products like cheese and yoghurt), eggs, meat and fish. Even wood for furniture, bowls, etc. and wool for clothes and carpets. Just for reference, this grew over the past 20 years and there's around 30 people working there everyday. Again: it's a ton of work! But doing it that way (in exchange for living/eating there) you would bypass having to own something and saves you a lot of responsibility.

@Cocolove Hi, lovely to see other people interested in sustainable farming here. First I’d say don’t underestimate what it takes to be totally self sufficient. You’ll need to have a lot of experience and you’re gonna have to make a ton of sacrifices. Especially in colder climates it can be a huge challenge to realise. So being totally self sustained is probably aiming a bit too high, especially in the beginning. Work part time, see to make passive income or work from home. If you wanna go all in consider selling some of your produce or starting a CSA. You’ll never be rich though. You also don’t have to grow everything yourself, there are lots of alternatives and in-between steps. Look into community gardens and food coops for example. Where to start? On a farm;-) From your post I can’t read how much experience you have in gardening/farming but I’d say start on other farms for sure and see how you like it. There’s lots of different ways of living sustainably, no two farms are the same. Get a feel of what you like, not only in theory but in practice. Farming is very hands - on. I can seem romantic until you have to work 12h days in a physically exhausting job just to see half of your produce go to waste because it doesn't rain enough. Only if it's a true passion you'll be able to take those kinds of setbacks. It’s beautiful and rewarding if you love it and you’re willing to put all of your energy into it. But I don’t know a lot of people that would actually thrive doing it.

Children want nothing more than to learn and make sense of their surrounding. Playing is just their way of doing it. We generally pay very little attention to the pace at which children develop which results in them having to sit still all day and ‘learn’ by the age of 6. Thankfully, there’s lots of alternatives already and they’ll become a lot more popular. I have the pleasure to be around lots of people that went to a Steiner- (Waldorf) or Montessori school. Not saying those are perfect (yet) but usually those people have not lost their drive to learn new things and have a good sense of their strengths and weaknesses. (Compared to when I graduated high school where everyone just detested everything that had anything to do with studying and has no idea what to do with their lives.) School just doesn’t prepare you for real life at all. We still live in a society where people adequate intelligence with being able to reproduce what someone else said. Rather we should focus on critical thinking, independence, social skills and being able to deal with one’s emotions. The head of the Belgian public employment service actually once said that 70% of children that start school today will have a job that doesn’t even exist yet. Of course our school system can't work when you look at those numbers so change is inevitable. It’s a huge waste of time at best and takes everyone’s passion and confidence away at worst.

@Shaun Think about what you’re really looking for in a partner. What’s a no - go for you? Any deal breakers? I’d say don’t compromise and settle for less when it comes to those things. Except you just wanna have some fun or get some experience of course but I don’t think that’s the case for you. It saved me a lot of energy to not settle for something I’m not certain will be worth my time. You’re a feeler, you’ll know the difference;-) That being said, it took a lot of relationships and experiences to get to that point, so maybe you still have to get to know yourself in that way. If you play around with LOA, I’d say focus more on how you will feel being with someone you love. How will your mood be? Do you feel accepted? Like you can grow and be yourself? If those things are present in a girl, and other things (what she looks like/does/thinks) are flexible your chances are a lot greater to find someone that fits your description. (And you won’t go rigid on all the details, always looking for the perfect person.) You don’t need a girlfriend that is into all the practices that you are into, if you still feel those things with her. Someone that never even heard of meditation can teach you amazing things and some people are just more present/connected to life by default. On the flip side, a lot of ‘spiritual’ people are just full of themselves narcissists that think they’re infallible and don’t have to question their behaviour in a relationship. So, think again why you value these traits and that they come out differently in different people. Also, careful not to think they’re a shortcut to not have any problems in understanding each other in a relationship. Because believe me, no matter who you’re together with, relationships are a lot of work and can be nerve wracking. It will teach you a lot of things about yourself that you weren’t even aware of. So you’re probably still gonna kick and scream sometimes. That’s not to say that being more conscious will not eliminate a big part of the (initial) problems. Also, if you have high standards and you’re dreaming up the perfect person, keep on doing lots of personal development. Become a 10/10 guy yourself and you’ll be with a 10/10 girl:-) Whether you like LOA or not, in that sense it still works.

Haha, I so know that feeling. It's funny how ultimately, we still wanna have the upper hand on the whole progress which totally misses the point. So tricky, isn’t it? Since doing mindfulness meditation I’m so painfully aware of how distracted I am 95% of the time. It’s hard not to judge oneself then. I totally notice how that leads nowhere though. It doesn’t matter how ‘good’ I am, how much I’m doing the things I planned to, the standard just keeps rising and it feels like suffocating. It's just scary to let go of control when it comes to all of this. Leo’s video on how to stop judging yourself really helped me some months ago. I should re-watch. Someone very smart told me the other day that I shouldn’t try to have an empty mind but rather become good at observing what’s is going on. This helped me a lot and it’s basically exactly what you (ehm, I mean Alan Watts) said too. As in: You can’t stop the traffic but you can choose how involved you wanna be. That’s what woman are in your life for, they’ll show you the way when it comes to this;-) That's why you're so attracted to them. They remind you of something that is in you and wants to get out. (Don't go back to the crazy chick though) That’s so funny that you say that, that’s how I think about my mind. It’s so limited, it can only show me things that already existed in the past. How could it ever bring me anywhere new? I see what you mean. You don’t immediately have to act on it. But if you don’t at least consider what your feelings are telling you they’ll keep coming up and forcing you to look at them (in my experience at least). Maybe stay with that yearning for a bit everyday. Allow yourself to really feel it. What does it really feel like? What’s the driver? Loneliness? Inadequacy? Fear of change? Do you need approval? That’s all things that you’ll need to tackle on your own anyway. Another person might help you to hide those things for a while, but it won’t make you free. I’d say it helps me to not fall into a victim mentality and to cherish the moment. Whatever brings me back to the present moment makes me less involved and my mind less rigid. The present is the only thing that can ever get you unstuck. Haha, how sweet! I can already see, this conversation could go on forever. Don’t feel bad if you just want to cut it off.

@CreamCat Careful not to judge people by their writing style though. A well structured and thought through text might just as well be a neurotic/ controlling pattern... *cough* I actually admire people that can just write down the first thing that comes to their mind without explaining themselves much.

Good! Keep going, it's a life long practice. Hahaha well thank god that's obvious! Not sure if offended or delighted by this remark Now I'm curious though, what's so man-like about my writing?

@carlowillo Great! Keep going for sure! I've done some recipe videos before and just travel clips for myself. It was good practice but nothing that really excited me. Lately, I've been dabbling with the idea of reviewing books. I love books and whenever I watch book reviews I always find that there's something missing, like I want to know things about the book no one ever talks about. Lots of ideas coming in when it comes to that. It always takes me some time to think about those things though before actually doing them. (That's a lie. It takes me forever. And after perfectly planning them out in my head, I never end up doing it. It's a problem. It also doesn't help that I'm a bit camera shy. Damn it!)

Stagnation!

@CreamCat I think I can relate. You’re becoming the observer in relationship to everything in your life. I think intimacy entails that you have something you want to share with people. There’s an exchange happening, we’re all mirroring each other all the time so we can define ourselves. But you’re just becoming empty. You don’t feel connected because your ‘self’ is taken out of the game and it’s all just happening. You’re becoming a tool of God. Being isolated can be healthy but it's you who has to feel that difference. Maybe you need it to foster something great. In that case, give yourself some time and try not to judge yourself. Eventually, you’re gonna feel pulled to get out there and give something back. Because on the long term you don’t want to keep yourself cut off from others. By what you’re going through you’re actually gonna be of great help for the people around you. Your acceptance means that you have no (or little) selfish reactivity or agenda. You’re gonna be able to see projections much more clearly and know where to help.

They don't win. I can recommend reading ’Lost Connections' by Johann Hari. The book talks about what our materialistic, scattered society is doing to our mental health (with lots of scientific proof), and possible ways to get out of it. Anyway, there's a chapter called 'Disconnection from meaningful values'. It talks about how we nowadays we are shifting from having meaningful values (doing something because we love it, things that give us flow-states), to having junk values (or extrinsic goals: giving us validation from the outside). I'll just quote you some lines I underlined. “Does achieving extrinsic goals make you happy? And how do they compare to intrinsic goals? The results, when we calculated them out, were quite startling. People who achieved their extrinsic goals didn't experience any increase in day-to-day happiness – none. They spend a huge amount of energy chasing these goals, but when they fulfilled them, they felt the same as they had at the start. Your promotion? Your fancy car? The new iPhone? The expensive necklace? They won't improve your happiness even one inch. But people who did achieve their intrinsic goals (being a more loving father, playing the piano, etc.) did become significantly happier, and less depressed and anxious.” The book states that “materialistic people, who think happiness comes from accumulating stuff and a superior status, had much higher levels of depression and anxiety." “It really did seem that materialistic people were having a worse time, day by day, on all sorts of fronts. They felt sicker and they were angrier. They experienced less joy and more despair.” We're being told happiness is reached by being able to buy lots of nice things. It's like junk food. It appeals to the part of us evolved to need food. But we don't get the nutrition we need out of it. Instead, we literally fill ourselves with toxins. “The first is that thinking extrinsically poisons your relationship with other people.(...) and they found the more materialistic you become, the shorter your relationships will be. If you value people for how they look, or how they impress other people, it's easy to see that you'll be happy to dump them if someone hotter or more impressive comes along.” “If you're doing something not for itself but to achieve an effect, you can't relax into the pleasure of the moment. You're constantly monitoring yourself. Your ego will shriek like alarm you can't shut off. (..) Materialism leaves you constantly vulnerable to a world beyond your control.” “When they talk amongst themselves, advertising people have been admitting since the 1920s that their job is to make people feel inadequate – and then offer their product as the solution to the sense of inadequacy they created.” “We are being propagandised to live in a way that doesn't meet our basic psychological needs: to feel connected, to feel secure, to feel valued, to feel we make a difference in the world. So we are left with a permanent, puzzling sense of dissatisfaction.” Just some food for thought :-) All the best!

@CreamCat You’re not alone feeling that way. The same thing happened to me when I started meditating. I wouldn’t say you’re doing something wrong if you’re ultimately feeling more connected to people. And you do, don’t you? I remember I started to feel equal openness to everyone, like some sort of field where everything/one is equally welcome. I had a hard time ‘ranking’ people or having any preference at all. All was fine. It’s difficult to describe but maybe you’re experiencing the same thing. The question is: Does it feel bad? You’re not obliged to be intimate all the time. (At least physically, or do you mean something else like not being able to open up to people?) There’s a good chance you’re just establishing some base ground for accepting and acknowledging all people equally. From this new vantage point, a lot of new and good things can happen. So maybe you’re doing things just the right way:-)

@carlowillo Your videos are great! Having tried some editing myself at times, I see that it must be a whole lot of work to make them. Keep going :-) You have like the perfect voice for these kinds of videos!

@Wisebaxter Such a good question! I think for myself I’d call it mind or body, rather than active or passive. And what you call collective unconscious I might call intuition. For me, it depends on the question. In general, I let intuition decide the general direction of my life. By this I mean the big questions like where I wanna live or who I wanna be with. Then I let my mind figure out all the details because it’s really good at that ;-) It’s pretty difficult to get in touch with your intuition though. Leo has a video on it that is really good I find. It’s like raising a tiny, fragile plant under a ton of concrete blocks of thinking mind. So it takes some time, but it works. Nowadays, when I’m making decisions that go against my gut feeling, I’m having dreams every night that are trying to warn me about the decision I’m about to make. Pretty awesome! We’re usually very much focused on our thinking mind and, as you said yourself, it tends to get rigid the more you try to force it. That’s especially true when it comes to creative tasks. So if your question is not one with two or more options but rather an innovative one, you’ll wanna find a way to empty your mind as much as you can to be open to all kinds of thoughts and possibilities. If writing is your thing you can try creative morning papers, where you just sit down first thing in the morning and write two pages. It doesn’t matter what, you just don’t stop until two pages are full. It’s gonna be silly and you can’t think about it. It’s like opening the flood gates and writing everything that is on your mind. You’ll feel beautifully empty afterwards, very spacious and open - so perfectly set up for a creative task. There are also great meditations that teach you on how to peel back the layers that clutter your mind. I actually just did that the past 30 days. You can send me a message if you want to know more details about it, I can talk you through it :-) I think whether you focus on thinking or feeling, both are great, and both are somewhat true. A good way to notice the difference are gratitude lists for example. I’ve been doing daily gratitude lists for 1,5 years now and I used to always think about what I’m grateful for. I’d write down things like “I’m grateful that my co-workers are so kind to me” or “I’m grateful for having had a good night sleep”. I’m guessing you can think of 3 things in your life that you’re grateful for. At least I hope you can :-) Do it now. Before you keep reading think about what you appreciate in your life. Now try and close your eyes, focus on your breath for 3 complete breath cycles and then say out loud to yourself “Who or what do you appreciate most in your life right now?” Don’t expect an answer right away, just drop the question into your body and see what comes up. Try not to think about it, but just feel what the question does to you. Do it now. When I do that, the answers tend do be a lot more body-focused and now-focused. Thing like “It being a good temperature in my room” or “Silence”. Doesn’t mean one is more true than the other. It’s just a different focus. Hope this helps :-)

@CreamCat If you’re ‘undeveloped’ you’re gonna have those difficulties in all areas of your life, this doesn’t just apply to relationships. It’s for sure gonna be painful if you haven’t developed beyond your neediness for the other person to complete you. But so often, people don’t even know that they could feel better, they just think that that’s how life is. (I know I did too.) Yes they suffer, but probably not as much as you think from your perspective. So not only society is pushing them, they’re pushing themselves too because they think it’s gonna bring them happiness. "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." - My boy Jesus In my experience, you’re automatically gonna attract people with the same level of confidence, emotional stability, etc. anyway. So I think it’s not that common that those things don’t match up with your partner. But, even if you’re very ‘developed’ relationships are still really tricky. It’s always easy to see those things from the outside, but when you’re in the midst of it it’s a different story. I’m not really contradicting you btw, just doing some mental processing over here I think I basically agree with you. I’d rather walk alone than walk with a lunatic. No need to be perfect though. Once you're at a certain stage, relationships can be a great tool in your personal development. @Arcangelo Thank you for letting us know your perspective. There are other perspectives Pushing things away at any cost can also mean that there is something in you that you don’t want to deal with. A partner can show you a lot of things that you didn’t even know were part of you, so a relationship can be really rewarding. I think you can develop yourself being single. You can also develop yourself in a relationship. So can moving to a different country, raising children or taking care of your father help you with growth. It’s all yoga, if you make it so. LOL @Shin I just wrote all this just to see that you’ve literally said everything I wanted to say in one sentence. Haha, what a joke. I’m gonna post it anyway. So yes, basically, forget what I said and remember this: Marriage is silly if you’re silly

I'm a bit hesitant to take any stands on this topic but you might wanna check out Paul Verhaeghes work, especially the book "The end of psychotherapy". I have to say that I haven't read it myself yet, but a lot of my professors that have been working with children with ADHD for a long time are looking up to his advice. You can't deny that there's a cluster of symptoms, and maybe there is a biological disposition that can play into it, but it's probably much less relevant than we are lead to believe. Same as depression. Remember: "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Jiddu Krishnamurti

@ThinAir haha ok passt danke, he i leg jz auf, tschüssi!! @Grant NZ thank you so much for sharing so detailed. What you're saying makes a lot of sense. Really enjoyed reading it. I'm still a bit spooked out because it felt so foreign. I'm curious if it will ever happen again.

Ok, I have no idea how to describe what happened last night, I can only try to say what it felt like. It’s like free floating negativity was looking for a host, grabbing me to do it’s thing “through” me. Work it out. I felt like tense balls of dark energy were nesting in my left foot, left hip, lower belly, left shoulder and elbow. Out of NOWHERE After some time, they spread out, not being so dense anymore, covering pretty much all of the left side of my body (not my neck and face). My breath was super short at this point, no belly breathing but not only chest either. More like short exhales at the point where my ribs part. Later it felt like these parts were dying away, just getting less strong. I could still feel the left side of the body from the outside but not from the inside. Couldn’t really move it. Not a sudden death but fading/rotting away, going all dark. Then weird tingles all over these places, like when your limbs fall asleep, after some time. They started to form little deliberate moving forms, like small worms moving in imperfect circles, then there were some shots of electricity between those points. That felt super pleasant, almost orgasmic but I only noticed them shortly after they happened. At that point I fell asleep because I was so exhausted. Thank god someone was with me. I don’t know how long it all took? Maybe 1h? The weird thing is, I didn’t even feel too bad. I was in pain but it psychologically didn’t touch me. Yes, I was concerned to wake my neighbours but I could laugh through it most of the time. I was a bit scared/confused because I couldn’t let it ‘out’, I didn’t know how. It didn't feel like mine, I didn’t know what ‘it’ would do. And all that time there was nothing on my right side. I’m actually feeling really good/ calm/ in touch with myself lately, I still do. So my question is: What was that about? I literally feel like someone has/ should have done an exorcism on me. If it has anything to do with awakening? it didn’t feel like that energy was mine at all. If this was kundalini, isn’t it supposed to work through the spine? And leave you really energised? Thanks to anyone who can give me some guidance here. I just want to understand what is happening, please.

Ugh! Beautiful thread. I'll add some of my favorites that aren't mentioned yet. All from Walden: "Time is but a stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while i drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains." "In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness." "Thaw with his gentle persuasion is more powerful than Thor with his hammer. The one melts, the other but breaks in pieces." "Though the youth at last grows indifferent, the laws of the universe are not indifferent, but are for ever on the side of the most sensitive." "Not till we are lost - in other words, not till we have lost the world - do we begin to find ourselves, and realise where we are, and the infinite extent of our relations." "To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to it's dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust." "Follow your genius closely enough, and it will not fail to show you a fresh prospect every hour." "Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth." "It is life near the bone where it is sweetest." "The morning wind forever blows, the poem of creation is uninterrupted; but few are the ears that hear it." "The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star."

"We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time." - T. S. Eliot (Four Quartets)